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Customer Letters

This page describes the Customer Letters form in the CRM module.

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The Customer Letters form prints letters from records in the Customer Letter register. It first searches for Customer Letters that match the search criteria entered in the 'Specify Customer Letter' window as described below. For each Customer Letter found, it then prints the letter text entered on the 'Text' card to the recipients as determined in the connected Mailing List or on the 'Customer Selection' and 'Cat/Class Selection' cards. Before printing, you can obtain a list of the recipients using the Letter List report.

You can also print letters from a single Customer Letter record while entering or viewing it by clicking the Printer icon (Windows/Mac OS X) or selecting 'Print' from the File menu (all platforms). To print letters to screen, click the Preview icon (Windows/Mac OS X only).

Period
Paste Special    Reporting Periods setting, System module
Subject to the other search criteria below, letters will be printed from all Customer Letter records whose Date falls in the period entered here.

No.
Range Reporting    Numeric
To print letters from a specific Customer Letter record, enter its Number here. Alternatively, enter a range of Numbers separated by a colon (:).

Letters printed from any Customer Letter records in the range that have not been marked as OK will include the phrase "Test Printout" as a watermark (providing you are not using the No Test Printout option in the Optional Features setting in the System module).

You must specify a Customer Letter Number or a range. If you need to print letters from every Customer Letter from the specified period, enter * in this field. If you leave this field blank, no letters will be printed.

Form Template
Paste Special    Form Template register, System module
Specifying a Form Template here will have two consequences. First, letters will be printed from all Customer Letter records with that Form Template specified on the 'Header' card. Second, the letters will be printed using the Form Template specified here, not the Form specified in the 'Form Definition' window as described here.

Language
Paste Special    Languages setting, System module
When letters from a Customer Letter record are printed, the choice of Form Template (i.e. the letter template) will be made as follows:
  1. The Form Template specified in the Form Template field on the 'Header' card of the Customer Letter will be used,

  2. If no Form Template has been specified in a Customer Letter, the Form Template specified in the 'Form Definition' window for the Customer Letter document will be used. This allows letters to be printed using different Form Templates depending on the Language of the Customer Letter.
If you are using the second method (i.e. if the Form Template fields above and in the Customer Letter are empty), you can override the Language in the Customer Letter by specifying a Language here. This can be useful if, for example, you have a standard letter that is sometimes printed and sometimes faxed. In this case, enter separate rows in the 'Form Definition' window for printing and faxing. The fax row should have a dedicated Language (e.g. "FAX") in the Lang field. When you create the Customer Letter, enter the appropriate Language on the 'Header' card to use the default printer (usually you can leave the Language blank in both the Customer Letter and the 'Form Definition' window). When you need to fax the letter, enter the Language for the fax server here. This will override the Language in the Customer Letter record.

Note that this is not a search filter. Entering a Language here will not cause letters to be printed only from Customer Letter records with that Language specified in the Document field on the 'Header' card. Note too that a Language entered here will have no effect on a Customer Letter with a Form Template specified on its 'Header' card.

Function
You can choose to print letters from every Customer Letter in the selection, or just from those that have not been used before. Make that choice using these options.

Skip Letters with email Address
You can choose to print letters from every Customer Letter in the selection, or just from those that do not have Email Addresses on their 'Address' cards. tick this box for the latter option.

Skip Letters with Fax No.
You can choose to print letters from every Customer Letter in the selection, or just from those that do not have Fax Numbers on their 'Address' cards. Tick this box for the latter option.
You can use the following fields when you design the Form to be used by the Customer Letter document:

Field in FormPrints
These fields print information from the Customer Letter record.
Contact PersonContact (i.e. Contact Person name)
Customer NumberCustomer (i.e. the Customer or Supplier Number)
Date with Month In WordsDate, with the month as a word. For example, 2/1/2018 will be printed as "02 January 2018". The Date Order (e.g. day, month, year) will be taken from the Company Date and Numeric Format setting
DayThe day from the Date. For example, the day from 2/1/2018 will be printed as "2"
Document TypePrints "Customer Letter". This field only prints if the VAT Law in the Company Info setting is set to "Portuguese"
EmailEmail
GreetingsGreetings
HeaderHeader
Invalid InvoicePrints the phrase "Document not valid as an invoice". This field only prints if the VAT Law in the Company Info setting is set to "Portuguese"
Job DescriptionJob Title
MonthThe month from the Date. For example, the month from 2/1/2018 will be printed as "1"
Serial Number (Number Series) No.
SignatureSignature
TextText. You can enter as the Field Argument the maximum number of characters that can be printed in one line. For example, if the Field Argument is 40, up to 40 characters will be printed per line (fewer if the 40th character occurs in the middle of a word). If you do not specify a Field Argument, it will be assumed to be 90. Usually you will need to specify a Field Argument if the field is not wide enough for 90 characters: do not enter a number of characters that is too great for the width of the field. You should specify a Line Height for this field
Transaction DateDate
Transaction Date (transdate) Date
Transaction TimeTime
YearThe year from the Date. For example, the year from 2/1/2018 will be printed as "2018"
These fields print information from the Contact record whose Contact Number is in the Customer field in the Customer Letter or, if the Customer field contains a range, from each Contact record in turn.
Bank CodeAccount Operator
Country CodeCountry
Customer Fax NumberFax
Customer Telephone NumberPhone
Customer VAT Reg. NumberVAT Reg. No.
Delivery AddressDelivery Address. This information will be printed on separate lines, so you should specify a Line Height for this field
Delivery Address 5Fourth line of Delivery Address
Delivery Address 6Fifth line of Delivery Address
NameName
Salutation 1, CustomerSalutation 1
Salutation 2, CustomerSalutation 2
Salutation 3, CustomerSalutation 3
Search KeyShort
Supplier Address 1First line of Delivery Address
Supplier Address 2Second line of Delivery Address
Supplier Address 3Third line of Delivery Address
These fields print information from the Contact record whose Name is in the Contact field in the Customer Letter or, if the All Contact Persons option is checked, for each Contact Person in turn.
Contact Person TitleCourtesy Title
Salutation 1Salutation 1
Salutation 2Salutation 2
Salutation 3Salutation 3
These fields print information from the Contact record whose Name is in the Contact field in the Customer Letter or, if the relevant field in that Contact record is blank, from the Contact record whose Contact Number is in the Customer field (or from each Contact Person or Customer in turn).
Contact Person AddressInvoice Address. This information will be printed on separate lines, so you should specify a Line Height for this field
Contact Person FaxFax
Contact Person PhonePhone
DepartmentDepartment
Job Description 2Job Title
If the Contact Number in the Customer field in the Customer Letter belongs to a Customer or Supplier, the following fields allow a table to be printed that lists the Contact Persons that are connected to that Customer or Supplier. Apart from the Job Title, the information in these fields will be taken from the Contact Relations records that connect the Contact Persons to the Customer or Supplier. You should specify a Line Height in these fields, and set the Format to "Header":
Contact EmailContact Email Address
Contact Job DescriptionJob Title from the Contact record for the Contact Person
Contact NameContact Name
Contact PhoneContact Phone
These fields are useful if the Contact Number in the Customer field in the Customer Letter belongs to a Customer or, if the Customer field contains a range, for the Customers in the range in turn. If the Contact Number in the Customer field belongs to a Supplier or Contact Person, these fields will print 0.00.
Aged Totalprints the total outstanding amount for the Customer in the Sales Ledger, calculated from open and overdue Invoices
Aged Value 0prints the Sales Ledger amount that is not yet due for payment on the date the letter is printed
Aged Value 1-7print the overdue amounts divided into ageing periods. The ageing periods are determined by the Age Limits setting in the Sales Ledger or the Accounting Periods setting in the Nominal Ledger.
For example, if you have specified age limits in the Age Limits setting of 30, 60, 90 and 120 days, Aged Value 1 will print the amount outstanding for between 0 and 30 days, Aged Value 2 will print the amount outstanding for between 31 and 60 days, and so on. In this example, as there are four ageing periods, Aged Value 5 will print the amount outstanding for longer than 120 days.
If you want the ageing periods to be determined by the Accounting Periods setting, use the Use Accounting Periods instead of Age Limits option in the Age Limits setting, and specify how many Accounting Periods you want to use.
The age of an Invoice is the number of days between its Due Date and the date the letter is printed.
These fields print information from the record in the Banks setting that is used as the Account Operator in the Contact record whose Contact Number is in the Customer field in the Customer Letter or, if the Customer field contains a range, from each Contact record in turn.
Bank AccountAccount (IBAN)
Bank AddressAddress. This information will be printed on separate lines, so you should specify a Line Height for this field
Bank Address 0First line of the Address
Bank Address 1Second line of the Address
Bank Address 2Third line of the Address
Bank Address 3Fourth line of the Address
Bank Address 4Fifth line of the Address
Bank ClearingClearing
Bank Corresponding AccountCorr. Account
Bank NameName
Bank SortingSort Key
Bank SwiftBIC (SWIFT)
These fields print information from the Customer Letter, from the Contact record whose Name is in the Contact field in the Customer Letter or from the Contact record whose Contact Number is in the Customer field (or from each Contact Person or Customer in turn).
AddressName from the Customer Letter or the Customer (if you are using the Organisation Name option in the Form Settings setting) and (Invoice) Address from the Customer Letter, the Contact Person or the Customer. This information will be printed on separate lines, so you should specify a Line Height for this field. Use the Form Settings setting to set the format of this field (e.g. to specify whether blank lines will be printed, whether parts of the address will be printed on the same line, etc.)
Address 1First line of the Address from the Customer Letter or the Customer
Address 2Second line of the Address from the Customer Letter or the Customer
Address 3Third line of the Address from the Customer Letter or the Customer
Address 4Fourth line of the Address from the Customer Letter or the Customer
Address 5Fifth line of the Address from the Customer Letter or the Customer
These fields print information from the Person record whose Signature is in the Sign field in the Customer Letter.
Email SalesmanEmail Address
PersonName
ProfessionJob Descr.

Please refer here for details of the standard fields that you can also include in the Form Template.

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